Buckingham, Fleetwood part ways

LOS ANGELES, April 10, (Agencies): Lindsey Buckingham will have to go his own way. The singer-guitarist is out of Fleetwood Mac.

The band said in a statement Monday that Buckingham will not be on their new tour. The announcement came in two terse sentences at the bottom of a long news release announcing the new concerts.

“Lindsey Buckingham will not be performing with the band on this tour,” the statement said. “The band wishes Lindsey all the best.”

He’ll be jointly replaced by Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers.

Buckingham joined the band with then-girlfriend Stevie Nicks in 1974 and the two became the central faces, voices and songwriters of the group for the four decades that followed.

Buckingham sang and either wrote or co-wrote hits like “Go Your Own Way,” “Tusk,” and “The Chain.”

Buckingham left the band once before in 1987, returning for a tour in 1996 and remaining a steady member since.

No details were given on what led to the latest split. Buckingham’s agent referred requests for comment back to a publicist for Fleetwood Mac, who said it wasn’t yet clear how to reach Buckingham for a reaction.

The 68-year-old released an album and played a series of dates with the band’s Christine McVie last year.

Fleetwood Mac used most of the news release announcing the departure to tout its two new members.

“We jammed with Mike and Neil and the chemistry really worked and let the band realize that this is the right combination to go forward with in Fleetwood Mac style,” Mick Fleetwood, the drummer who co-founded the band in 1967, said in the statement. “We know we have something new, yet it’s got the unmistakable Mac sound.”

Finn said the group contacted him only very recently, and he was stunned to suddenly find himself a member.

“Two weeks ago I received a wonderful invitation to be a part of a truly great band,” Finn said in a statement. “A few days later I was standing in a room playing music with Fleetwood Mac. It felt fresh and exciting, so many great songs, a spectacular rhythm section and two of the greatest voices ever. Best of all, we sounded good together. It was a natural fit. I can’t wait to play.”

The two voices Finn refers to are those of Nicks and McVie, who will be on the tour along with fellow longtime members Fleetwood and John McVie.

For Campbell, the new venture will be his first return to touring since the death in October of Petty, his musical partner of 42 years. Campbell was a founding member of the Heartbreakers in 1975, and played with them until just days before Petty died. The pair already had ties to Fleetwood Mac. They wrote and played on Nicks’ 1981 hit “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

Also:

LOS ANGELES: Carrie Underwood teased her next single with an Instagram post Sunday night that features her left eye with glitter in the shape of tears and a caption that says simply, “This Wednesday, April 11, 6am ET.” Then on Monday morning, the Academy of Country Music Awards announced that Underwood will be performing her new single at the show on Sunday, although it did not reveal the song’s title.

The performance will likely be Underwood’s first since she suffered a fall in November that broke her wrist and required 40 to 50 stitches in her face and led her to caution fans that she may look “a bit different” when they see her again. Underwood posted a photo last week that showed only the left side of her face.

“There is also another part of the story that I haven’t been ready to talk about since I have still been living it and there has been much uncertainty as to how things will end up,” she wrote in a January post on her fan club’s site. “In addition to breaking my wrist, I somehow managed to injure my face as well. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but when I came out of surgery the night of my fall, the doctor told [Underwood’s husband] Mike that he had put between 40 and 50 stitches in.

“Now, here we are 7 weeks later and, even though I’ve had the best people helping me, I’m still healing and not quite looking the same. I honestly don’t know how things are going to end up but I do know this: I am grateful. I am grateful that it wasn’t much, much worse.”

The singer also said she’ll be entering the studio next week to begin work on new songs. “And when I am ready to get in front of a camera, I want you all to understand why I might look a bit different,” she wrote. “I’m hoping that, by then, the differences are minimal, but, again, I just don’t know how it’s all going to end up.”

While Underwood has posted only photos showing part of her face, on Dec 12 actress Adrienne Gang posted a photo of herself with Underwood (who was wearing a wrist brace), adding the following day, “I had no clue she was injured … she looked amazing!”